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PostPosted: 12/21/10 4:01 pm • # 26 
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Sidartha wrote:
Huh?

google search, sid.  what did you THINK i meant?


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PostPosted: 12/21/10 4:04 pm • # 27 
Run someone off the road... it's the context mac... the context.   Image


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PostPosted: 12/21/10 4:08 pm • # 28 
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LMAO


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PostPosted: 12/21/10 4:17 pm • # 29 
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Sidartha wrote:
Run someone off the road... it's the context mac... the context.   Image

i kinda thought that is what you thought i was saying.  but it wasn't what i was thinking.  it is just what i said.  see?


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 5:51 am • # 30 
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yeah. i think START is a done deal as of this morning. look for the GOP leadership to cave in on this one.


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 7:27 am • # 31 
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They'd have caved on all the other stuff as well, IMO.
Nonetheless, there have been some outstanding achievements recently.
Hats off to Obama admin., the Congressional Dems and the sensible Repugs.


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 9:25 am • # 32 
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HALLELUJAH!!! ~ the vote easily exceeded the 67 needed ~ now ... on to the Zadroga 9/11 health bill ~ Sooz

Senate approves nuclear arms pact

By the CNN Wire Staff
December 22, 2010 3:10 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
    [*][b]NEW:[/b] The accord passes in a 71-26 vote [*]A number of Republicans break with conservative leaders and back the treaty [*]A late amendment helps assure passage [*]The approval is a major foreign policy win for President Obama[/list]

Washington (CNN) -- The Senate voted Wednesday to approve the new nuclear arms control treaty with Russia -- a major foreign policy victory for the Obama administration near the end of the lame-duck session of Congress.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, was cleared by a 71-26 vote. Several Republicans joined a unified Democratic caucus in support of the treaty.

Under Senate rules, the treaty required support from a two-thirds majority of voting senators for final approval.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, was cleared with the help of solid Democratic support, as well as the backing of several Republican senators.

If ratified, the treaty would resume inspections of each country's nuclear arsenal while limiting both the United States and Russia to 1,550 warheads and 700 launchers. It still needs to be approved by the Russian parliament.

President Obama signed the treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. The accord is considered a critical component of nuclear non-proliferation efforts and the administration's attempt to "reset" Washington's relationship with Moscow.

Several senators were reassured by the last-minute passage of an amendment stating that the accord should not be interpreted in a way that would hamper U.S. missile defense plans. The amendment was sponsored by Republican senators John McCain of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, among others.

Others said they had been assured of an administration commitment to modernize America's aging nuclear arsenal.

"The people of the world are watching us, because they rely on our leadership," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Massachusetts. It is time to "move the world a little more out of the dark shadow of nuclear nightmare."

"We are the leading nuclear power on this earth. It is our responsibility to lead," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota. This treaty is "a step in the right direction."

Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, called it a step forward in terms of constraining "expensive arms competition with Russia" and frustrating "rogue nations who would prefer as much distance as possible between the United States and Russia."

Not all Republicans were convinced, however.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, argued on the Senate floor that the basic premise of the treaty -- that America's nuclear arsenal should be at parity with Russia's -- is flawed.

"Russia is a protector of none and a threat to many. America is a protector of many and a threat to none," DeMint said.

DeMint also voiced an ongoing conservative complaint in the lame-duck session -- that Democrats were ramming the treaty through as part of a long list of partisan priorities rejected by the public in the midterm elections.

"We should not be passing major legislation at this time of year with this Congress," he said. The arms pact is part of "a continued effort of accommodation and appeasement" that makes a "mockery of the debate and ratification process."

Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, called the treaty "an echo from the 20th century" that fails to account for new and emerging threats. Kirk and several other senators expressed a fear that, regardless of the amendment pushed through by McCain and Corker, the treaty would weaken America's ability to prevent potential nuclear attacks from countries such as Iran and North Korea.

Passage of the treaty appeared to be in doubt for weeks. A late burst of support came Tuesday, however, after treaty supporters voted down or tabled several Republican amendments, saying they were unnecessary and would imperil the pact by reopening negotiated language or understandings with Russia.

The defeated amendments included adding a reference to tactical nuclear weapons and a bid to remove from the preamble language recognizing a relationship between offensive and defensive weapons.

A number of senior military leaders publicly endorsed the treaty, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen.

"This treaty has the full support of your uniformed military, and we all support its ratification," Mullen wrote in a letter read Monday by Kerry.

The late endorsement helped undercut a move by some conservatives to delay final consideration of the treaty until January, when Republicans will have a stronger minority in the Senate and, therefore, more leverage.

Obama and Democratic leaders, conversely, pushed strongly to get the agreement passed before their majority in the Senate diminishes.

In a sign of the high stakes involved, Obama and other top administration officials, including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all talked to individual senators in recent days to seek support for the treaty.

An overwhelming majority of Americans support ratification of the treaty, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Tuesday: 73% of people questioned in the national poll said the Senate should approve the accord, while 24% said senators should reject it.

CNN's Alan Silverleib, Tom Cohen, Dana Bash, Ted Barrett and Lesa Jansen contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/P...ndex.html?iref=allsearch



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PostPosted: 12/22/10 9:58 am • # 33 
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it will pass the house too. they can't stop it. but they will try.


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 10:04 am • # 34 
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Mac, are you sure that the House votes on treaty ratification? ~ I thought that responsibility was limited to the Senate ~

Sooz


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 10:07 am • # 35 
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sooz08 wrote:
Mac, are you sure that the House votes on treaty ratification? ~ I thought that responsibility was limited to the Senate ~

Sooz
oh damn.  you are right.  i need more coffee.


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 10:15 am • # 36 
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 NBC's Mark Murray
With an approval rating in the teens, Congress right now is about as popular as Julian Assange at the State Department's Christmas Party -- or Sarah Palin at The Nation's editorial meeting, or President Obama at a Federalist Society convention.

And, politically, the Democratic-controlled Congress took a beating from voters in November, as Republicans won back control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate.

But lost in the poll numbers and the voters' message in November is this one unmistakable fact: This Congress, which likely will come to a close this week, accomplished more, legislatively, than any other Congress since the 1960s (the Great Society) or the 1930s (the New Deal).

In the past two years, it has:
-- expanded the safety net with the health-care law;

-- invested billions in the nation's roadways, airports, schools, and green technologies with the stimulus;

-- reformed the nation's financial system with financial reform;

-- passed billions in tax cuts for Americans with the stimulus and the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts

-- expanded civil rights with the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

And in its final piece of business, the Senate is currently working on one of the White House's top
foreign-policy goals: ratification of the New START treaty with Russia. Then throw in all of the other legislation enacted this Congress, like credit-card reform and the Lilly Ledbetter anti-pay-discrimination act.

"I would probably rank the New Deal [Congress] first," congressional scholar Norm Ornstein told First Read. "I think this one edges the Great Society. It is at least on par with the Great Society."

"For all the dysfunction, it was just astonishing what they were able to get done," Ornstein added.

Many can take credit for these accomplishments. President Obama (who spent his political capital on these legislative items, especially health care). Democratic leaders (who had to placate everyone in their party from Bernie Sanders on the left to Ben Nelson on the right). Democratic members of Congress (many of whom cast tough votes). And, at least on the tax-cut deal, congressional Republicans (who bucked growing conservative resistance to the legislation).

What's more, these accomplishments will likely have staying power. While Republicans campaigned, at least in part, on rolling back the agenda passed these past two years, they won't find doing so easy as long as Democrats remain in the majority in the Senate and the president wields veto power. (However, it appears that the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say about whether one of the key components of the health-care law is constitutional.)

Of course, the Democratic-controlled Congress biggest failure was losing 63 House seats -- the most since the 1940s -- and control of that chamber, as well as losing six Senate seats.

Yet as we -- and others -- have pointed out before, political power in Congress comes and goes. What truly matters is what you do with it when you have it.




http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/21/5689395-the-do-something-congress

now we shall see that the GOP does with their power. Image



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PostPosted: 12/22/10 11:14 am • # 37 
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Good read, roseanne ~ the two key comments for me in the article: "This Congress, which likely will come to a close this week, accomplished more, legislatively, than any other Congress since the 1960s (the Great Society) or the 1930s (the New Deal)." and "For all the dysfunction, it was just astonishing what they were able to get done," ~ to me, "astonishing" is a gross understatement ~

Sooz



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PostPosted: 12/22/10 11:18 am • # 38 
I think it's great they came together on this.  Kirk voted NO.  Sooz, you're going to have to whip your guy into shape!!!!


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 11:44 am • # 39 
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sooz08 wrote:

Good read, roseanne ~ the two key comments for me in the article: "This Congress, which likely will come to a close this week, accomplished more, legislatively, than any other Congress since the 1960s (the Great Society) or the 1930s (the New Deal)." and "For all the dysfunction, it was just astonishing what they were able to get done," ~ to me, "astonishing" is a gross understatement ~

Sooz

Yes, I agree. Funnily enough I posted this "over there" and not one con rebutted or even replied. I think I stunned them into silence. Image

  


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 12:13 pm • # 40 
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Another good article along the same vein from here:

Obama becomes the new 'comeback kid'

 

 


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PostPosted: 12/22/10 2:28 pm • # 41 
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mirroring this are his approval numbers, which bottomed out in September at -7 (Gallup). he is now at +0, with 46% approval and 46% disapproval. the trend has been steady- and Obama is now well ahead of where Reagan was at this point in his presidency.


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